The 25th Anniversary of Myst has me revisiting MOULa. I know older fans have been through a lot with this game and I was wondering if people could talk about the history of all that. Like how you all got through the various times it was offline and how the way you play the game has changed. Hope this can be a good place to reminisce and also get newer players (like me) familiar with the community. Thanks!

I've looked at the link [not exhaustively] and sorry, that's not how I remember it.Before I got there:2003 launch and not financially successful 2004 scrappedI remember hearing tales of day 1 involving and earthquake that seriously damaged URU.Until Uru August 2004 to Feb 2006Fans are running instances "shards" of uru. In Feb, Cyan opened Damala shard and all other shards were required to close. Towards the end, there was a 'pirate' shard that picked up abandoned shards. 2007 Gametap - after a year it was canceled for lack of subscribers Feb 2008November 2008, Cyan let go all but 7 employees. We celebrated a wake in the pub on the stairs.

Up until somewhere here, I could connect with a 56k telephone modem. I lost connection sometime after Gametap?? I remember Ubisoft hosting which would not allow a 56K

Except for the day 1 earthquake, this is all about technical hosting but this does effect the URU/DRC history.comments welcome - I'm more than confused by the WIKI articles

Most of the primary sources for historical events are gone: Tapestry Shard forum, Uru Obsession, the Great Tree Shard forum. Slackers Forum might still be around in some form but I've lost track of it. Guild of Greeters forum comes and goes as it's run on a private computer system. This means we have mainly memory and secondary sources from various points of view.

There were two forks of the fan-run Uru shard path: H'Uru, and Until Uru. I joined Tapestry Shard, an Until Uru installation, in May of 2005; it had been running since August of 2004 but I didn't have high-speed Internet then. I never really figured out the difference between H'Uru and Until Uru, although as time went on I joined more shards. We were all looking for the day when Cyan became stronger and brought the story back.

For me, Gametap wasn't it. I drifted away, to Kaneva, and There, and Second Life. For the first year after Gametap closed most of my time went to Guild Wars, to which a group of Geeters had drawn me. In 2013 various things happened that caused me to focus more on Second Life and that pattern still holds. We create our own stories now.

There were two forks of the fan-run Uru shard path: H'Uru, and Until Uru. [...] I never really figured out the difference between H'Uru and Until Uru

You're probably thinking about Alcugs... It used the PotS game with a custom server software written by Almlys. Untìl Uru used the same server software and game data from the end of Uru Live's Prologue in Feb 2004.

You're probably thinking about Alcugs... It used the PotS game with a custom server software written by Almlys. Untìl Uru used the same server software and game data from the end of Uru Live's Prologue in Feb 2004.

Oh, yes... Now I remember hearing the Alcugs term too. There were Alcugs shards and Until Uru shards, I think. Now I wonder what I was trying to remember when "H'Uru" popped into my mind.

Some personal history:There was much controversy in the Until Uru days between people who said "It's just a glorified chat room" and others who saw it as much more than that. The argument still goes on, probably in every on line game one can play. I have ignored the argument, seeing no need to tell reality what it is.

I have a tendency to dictate my own reality. "This is not possible, so don't bother trying." Given enough time I can find ways to not-try just about anything. This was especially active in the era of Until Uru. My job was becoming onerous but if I lost it I'd have a hard time finding another, so I just gutted it out.

In the spring of 2005 I got tired of dealing with dial-up modems so I signed up for DSL to make Internet things less frustrating. I'd been reading various forums so I knew the status of Uru. A few weeks later I suddenly realized I could play it now; I owned a PC for the first time in my life (bought to play off-line Uru) and had the connection.

A couple of weeks after joining others in the Cavern for the first time, I was at one of Donahoo's D'ni Happy Hour parties and became intrigued. She taught me how to connect to Teamspeak and play music. Shortly after that, Andrew C asked me to play some music for an event he was planning.

A friend of mine, in about 1981, had suggested that I go for a new career as a DJ because of my interest in music as expressed in various ways. I'd never thought about it because, well, I don't like DJs. They talk too much and rush through things too fast. I'd pretty much forgotten all of that when Andrew came to me. I agreed, thinking it would be a one-off event.

You take a step into a new world, or climb onto the bus. A door opens, decisions are made, one leading to another. Small steps. One day you're in Independence, Missouri, and another day, after a sequence of steps, you look out from the top of the Sierra Nevada and think about what you've crossed.

Andrew's simple question opened the door to such a new world. I've been through it, every step of the way, and still don't really understand the power of taking the next step. I'm still doing the event that started as UCF Music Night on the Tapestry Shard. Along with that I do many other events: seasonal dances, circus announcer-DJ, fund-raising events, others. People ask for me. It's astonishing.

And now... I write and read poems and stories, as a outgrowth of events at this year's Fantasy Faire in Second Life. I could have stood on the curb in Until Uru when Andrew asked me, said "No, thanks, I'm not doing that kind of thing. Ask Donahoo, she's good at it." The bus would have pulled away and I'd have stayed in my reality. Instead... I got on. And, with the encouragement of many other people, I'm still riding.

Edit: My original term for Donahoo's party (a general word for a mixed alcoholic drink) got converted to "expletive," so I changed the name to "D'ni Happy Hour."

Another thing you can do is to attend story night in the cavern. One of the old timers, r'Tayrtahn, reads an oral history of the cavern, starting with the arrival of the D'ni from their homeworld 10,000 years ago. Each story arc takes about 2 years to complete and he has been doing it over over a decade.

The time and place is in the Cavern every Saturday night at 10:30 P.M. pacific time in Tsahno's hood. Everyone's welcome!

Another thing you can do is to attend story night in the cavern. One of the old timers, r'Tayrtahn, reads an oral history of the cavern, starting with the arrival of the D'ni from their homeworld 10,000 years ago. Each story arc takes about 2 years to complete and he has been doing it over over a decade.

The time and place is in the Cavern every Saturday night at 10:30 P.M. pacific time in Tsahno's hood. Everyone's welcome!

Lord Chaos, it was great reading your story. It seems like this community is really something special.

It is a special community, and the story I wrote above has been on my mind for years. Yesterday, as I walked home from the farmer's market, I realized something else.

That first broadcast in June 2005, I barely knew enough to play an album on Teamspeak. Toward the end of the evening the question of a repeat came up, and the answer was unanimously "Yes." Practice makes easy what was formerly difficult, and that liberates thought-time for other aspects. I learned how to play individual songs, and queue them up to play next. After that, another fairly short step led to the making of playlists.

A radio DJ must get used to broadcasting into vacuum; the music goes out, and no one knows who hears it. I had the audience right there, making comments, dancing, talking about things. If what I played affected anyone I would know it. This could have been a disaster. if I were more malleable it would have been easy to play for the big response. If the audience were more sycophantic they could have praised everything I did and thus taught me nothing.

Not all programs I did in the Cavern were successful. Donahoo wanted to change her D'ni Happy Hour to biweekly and asked me to take over the alternating week. Within a few weeks the audience filtered away, Donahoo's sets being different from mine and her audience having expectations. I did some other experiments that tanked.

After those failures, I tried again with the "Up On the Roof!" party. It was an experiment in developing an audience, and it was modelled on Music Night but more dance oriented. Through the ensuing year we had a lot of fun. The party grew to 10 hours to serve the European groups. Between that and Music Night, I began to see more potential in playlists. I could use songs to tell longer stories. First, these were two- or three-song subsections of a playlist but they gradually grew into longer thematically related sets.

This all grew up in that particular environment: a receptive and appreciative audience. They'd come in, wondering what I'd play this time around.

In Second Life one can find DJs playing just about everything, with varying levels of skill. When I got there I just didn't want to compete. I don't like self-promotion; although I have done it, I prefer to be the presenter. In SL self-promotion is the norm. I still don't do it. Word gets out, eventually. Word of mouth, people telling stories, Uru-style, and Uru-style audiences gather. Those who like stories, who actually pay attention and look for larger stories beyond the basic presentation.

Second Life brings some interesting capabilities. Years ago I did music-and-slide shows for friends in my living room. Starting last year, with devices made by Tai'lahr, I've been doing these in SL. It all grows from the same impulse and opportunity: Uru 's story-loving people.